Category: October Revolution

On the occasion of the centenary of the Great Socialist October Revolution, on the 6 November on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, CPB General Secretary Robert Griffiths was invited to speak amongst a barrage of anti-communist propaganda. Rather than countering the inevitable and obvious attack with a defense of communism and the Soviet Union, he merely added that “we have had to make a very serious analysis of what went wrong in the Soviet Union… we have to take seriously the reasons as to why in the end that system was not sustainable.” He then goes on to say that we need to replace British capitalism with a “fairer society”. Having just described communism, which was immensely successful in the Soviet Union, as “unsustainable” Rob now leaves us wondering what British capitalism could be replaced with?

On the 100th anniversary of the great Socialist October Revolution, join us to celebrate the victorious struggles of the mass working class. We will come together to celebrate this working-class revolution, which literally shook the world, and still indicates the path we must take to shatter all exploitation of man by man and nation by nation! We will be holding THE centenary celebration of this festival of progressive humanity in Southall, west London, on Saturday 4th November, at 4.30pm.

At this meeting, we will bring together members and supporters from around the country and mark the continued development and growth of our organisation, while reminding ourselves of just what it is we are working towards.

Lenin and 1917: a new era

Over the years, the speakers at our meetings have examined in great detail all the most important aspects of the October Revolution. They have paid tribute to the men and women workers who carried out the revolution, and to the leading role of the Bolshevik party – the revolutionary organisation in whose footsteps we hope to follow, which enabled the workers to understand their enemy and to organise themselves to defeat it.

Importantly, in the present climate, our speakers have repeatedly stressed the vital role played by revolutionary theory – especially the immense theoretical contribution of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, who advanced Marxist science by adding to it a precise definition of imperialism (the final stage of decaying capitalism) and who detailed the ways in which imperialism affects the struggle of workers and peasants of all countries for their liberation and social emancipation.

It was Comrade Lenin who created the template for a revolutionary party, working out in the furnace of intense class struggle the essential elements of communist organisation that enabled workers to make their efforts effective. All parties that are serious about overthrowing capitalism and building socialism still follow these organisational tenets today.

Lenin was also a master of strategy and tactics. He solved many important questions, such as the peasant question and the national question, by clearly and precisely explaining their relationship to the socialist revolution. He demonstrated the need for the proletariat to maximise its forces by galvanising as many allies for each phase of the struggle as possible, and showed how it was both possible and necessary to take on the various enemies of socialism one at a time rather than all together.

Unlike Trotsky and his modern-day followers, Lenin did not play at revolution, and was not at all interested in heroic failures. He understood that what was at stake was nothing less than the future of humanity, and he taught the working class how to think and act so it could win.

After a busy week meeting with communist youth from around the world, Red Youth took a short trip to visit Stalin’s dacha on the coast of the Black Sea on Friday.

The site is well maintained with renovations to several rooms ongoing, and it attracted a continuous stream of visitors from across the former territories of the once glorious Soviet Union, and from father afield.

Gerry MacLochlainn, prominent Irish Republican, relates the significance of the 1916 Easter uprising, in Dublin, Ireland, that was a pivotal moment in the struggle of the Irish people for independence from British imperialism.

Speaking in Saklatvala Hall, Southall, at a meeting of the CPGB-ML to celebrate the 99th anniversary of the October Revolution, Gerry says that both the Great October 1917 Russian Revolution – which marks its centenary this year – and the 1916 Easter Uprising in Ireland, were part of the same great world-wide anti-imperialist struggle to free the working peoples of all countries from the pernicious grip of imperialism.

Comrade Sayakane Sisouvong, Laos’ Ambassador to the UK, spoke movingly of the electrifying effect that the October Revolution and Soviet Socialism – the first durable workers’ republic – had on the colonised peoples of southeast Asia, including the people of Laos.